Critics hammer $1.47 trillion deficit estimate

ATLANTA — Republicans are criticizing President Obama and Democrats amid a new White House report that estimates the deficit this year will reach $1.47 trillion, which critics say will be the largest in history.

“For the third year in a row, Washington’s binge-spending is creating the largest budget deficit in history,” U.S. Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., said in a statement. “Under President Obama’s latest guidance, taxpayers will owe a stunning $26.2 trillion in debt only ten years from now. Just the interest payments alone could cripple our economy. Democrats claim we need job-killing tax increases while ignoring the fact that the enormous rise in debt is caused by Washington’s gluttonous appetite for spending.

“Despite the immediate need to prioritize and reduce spending, the Democrats running Washington have no budget and no idea how to tackle this skyrocketing national debt,” Price added. “America cannot afford so-called leaders who refuse to confront this crisis and choose to kick the can down the road.”

U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., warned that the country is “facing a fiscal disaster,” adding that the country can no longer afford to “postpone the hard choices and sacrifices.”

“Four years ago, then-Senator Barack Obama said our nation’s ‘rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy.’ As president, he has done little to confront this domestic enemy, spending over $6.1 trillion in the first 18 months of his presidency,” Pence said in a statement.

“The message of (this) report is unambiguous: Washington desperately needs real leadership. We cannot continue to postpone the hard choices and sacrifices that are necessary to stop this fiscal train wreck.”